Satan's Blade Blu-Ray coming from Slasher // Video Summer 2014

I know they said they were "teaming up", but does Olive basically own Slasher // Video now?

 

No, it's just a distribution agreement/partnership. Slasher // Video are still a separate entity.

 

I just thought it was odd that the only place "Slasher // Video" appears on the sleeve (unless it appears on the spine, I haven't seen that...) is on the cover, the copyright is to Martini/Olive and there is no contact info for Slasher // Video like on their other releases.

 

Slasher // Video is on the spine, at the top. Martini Entertainment is at the bottom.

 

Having watched the disc now, the Blu-ray transfer looks amazingly good. Weird aspect ratio, and probably should have been matted a little, but I doubt this is ever gonna look better.

Should I just keep my original clamshell VHS, or sell it off? :lol:

 

Sell it asap while it's still worth anything. Now that this disc is so widely available, the VHS prices are going to start plummeting. If you jump on it, you can probably sell it for more than you paid for the blu-ray, making it a free upgrade and maybe even getting a little profit. It may look cool on your shelf, but let's face it: are you ever going to watch your VHS again when you can watch it in hi-def?

I always try to sell my previous editions before the new one hits in order to get the most money out of them. No need to have multiple copies of the same movie, save yourself the shelf space. There have been a lot of instances where I've upgraded to blu-ray for free by selling off my old DVD / VHS before the street date. Especially OOP stuff like Madman or Ski School, where I even made a nice profit. A lot of these MGM titles the studios have been cranking out are OOP on DVD, so you can get decent prices for them.

 

Region free?

 

on dvdcompare.net, it says ALL

on some other sites (like 10kbullets) it says region A

i hope dvdcompare have tested this, because i ordered it and can't play region A

 

I was checking out the first few minutes last night like I do with most new releases. After my eyes finally adjusted to the weird aspect ratio, I felt I could start to get a feel for the movie itself so that I could assign a "watchability" rating (something I do with blind buys to determine if I should keep the disc or get rid of it). I'll usually know within the first 10 or 15 minutes. Sadly, I decided to assign it a low rating. I guess I have a low tolerance for amateur hour productions

 

Yeah... the framing is definitely wacky. I didn't pull out the measuring tape or get an exact reading off the player or anything, but I'd have to agree with zbinks assessment of 1.19:1, as the movie definitely looks narrower than your standard fullscreen. Boom mikes make frequent appearances, you can see the lens in the corners of most shots, etc. I had only seen the film on a crummy YouTube VHS rip, but I don't remember constantly seeing the boom mike, nor did I spot it during the Japanese / Dutch footage included on this blu-ray.

But... I sort of didn't mind. I thought it gave it a certain charm, actually. It also helped that the transfer was so gorgeous and sharp. There's quite a bit of print damage, it felt like they just scanned the film and didn't touch it. But for a film like this, it seemed kind of perfect. Normally boom mike cameos would take me right out of the story, but let's face it: this is Satan's Blade and there really isn't much story to be taken out of. Not trying to dig at the film, I really enjoy it, but it's such an amateurish production. I don't recall many closeups in the entire film. There's no editing during the dialogue scenes, they're just shot flatly from a distance so that everyone's in frame. With the poor framing where you can see the behind-the-scenes stuff sneaking in, it just felt like an endearing look at low-budget filmmaking. I could very easily press ZOOM and matte all that stuff out, but I'll probably leave it as is for future viewings. It'd make for a fun drinking game, take a swig when you spot the boom mike.

The extras were maybe a little bit dry, but I'm glad they're there. It's better than nothing. The director talked more about distribution than he did the actual filming. I think I posted this before here, but there are three interviews with cast members on the Hysteria Lives website with better information than you get here (and they have some pretty interesting things to say about the director). Too bad Slasher // Video didn't try to get ahold of any of these people. The director probably didn't want them involved, he sort of goes on a rant about the actors bad mouthing the film in interviews (I'm assuming he's referring to the Tom Bongiorno interview). But I've linked them here, so definitely give them a read:

Stephanie Leigh Steele
Tom Bongiorno
Richard Taecker

 

I say we watch this movie frame per frame and point out all it's flaws.

 

DVD Drive-In review: http://www.dvddrive-in.com/reviews/n-s/satansbladeblu.htm

 

I received my copy today and can confirm that it's region A locked... tested regions B & C and simply get an 'invalid region' message.

As for the film itself I really liked it, the framing is odd but it never bothered me whilst watching.

p.s. updated dvdcompare.net stating that it's region A only.

 

Why is the framing 1.19:1? Seems odd even by direct-to-video standards.

 

As discussed and noted previously in this thread, they presented Satan's Blade on Blu-ray open matte - meaning the FULL frame of the 35mm film, which is how a lot of films are initially shot - and then supposed to be cropped and re-framed to 1.66:1 or 1.85:1 for theatrical exhibition. Or if shot anamorphic, 2.35:1 or wider. Open matte allows head room when shooting, and of course boom mics to occasionally drop in. These would be removed when presented theatrically when properly cropped and reframed, which was originally intended as the film was originally made in hopes of a theatrical release but that never happened and it was only ever released on home video - framed at 1.33:1. Olive / Slasher should have released it at 1.66:1 or 1.85:1.

 

Based on his comments on blu-ray.com, the Slasher // Video guy seems convinced the blu-ray is 1.35:1:

It looks like zbinks filled in all the discs specs for the blu-ray listing, but Slasher // Video went back in and changed the aspect ratio to 1.35:1.

 

Finally got around to watching. Looked great for what it is. I see what people say about the framing but it wasn't a problem for me. Can't wait for Slasher's next release.

 

OK, have to say i've sent an email to them (DVD Compare) asking them to be more careful with this kind of information in the future, 25€ down the fucking drain

though i know that the region locking is of course not their fault

 

Depending on the Blu-ray player you have - multi-region hacks are fairly cheap nowadays to allow everything and anything (opens up the whole Blu-ray catalogue for you).